The Service Location Protocol provides the same function in IP networks as SAP provides in IPX networks. It registers information in a database and allows clients to query the database to find services. There are, however, two principal differences between SAP and SLP:
SLP does not maintain a global database of services. It registers services only in the local area. It discovers services in the local area via multicast requests, which are forwarded using NDS replication from network to network within a site.
SLP assumes that the client is able to locate either services themselves, or a database server representing those services, using these pan-network multicasts.
Through Novell’s integration of SLP with NDS, local SLP information is compiled to provide a global representation of all available services on the network. This provides dynamic discovery of services locally and scalability in large networks.
The following topics explain the components of SLP: